Realising that she was quite unable to lace herself into the gown-- the laces being attached, for some mysterious and very impractical reason, at the back and so out of her reach-- Siena just resolved to call Monica to help her when she heard Alicia's voice reaching her from across the room.

Taking the first deep breath since she entered the house, Siena called to her instead. "Alicia, please, I need your help!"

"Of course, I'm here to help you. If I knew that Christopher would send Jake for you two instead of letting you come in your own time as he had promised, I'd have been here before. The man can be so stubborn sometimes... Oh, you two can go, I suppose, we can manage here."

Siena saw Alicia now talking to the two women as she stepped out from behind the screen.

"Perfect," Anne agreed, abandoning her place at the computer. "We haven't told her anything yet, we were waiting for her partner to be here as well, so they are on the same page. But all the information they need is here," she pointed at the computer screen, "and you and Albert have definitely more experience with the Travellers. Just don't forget anything. We'll see you downstairs in a few."

Anne looked at Siena as she said that, smiling, and Siena returned her smile a little hesitantly, not understanding much of what she had said, or rather what it was that she hadn't said yet, before she waved at Monica who greeted her in the same way from the door.

"Leave it ajar, please!" Siena called, remembering her and James' unspoken rule. It really felt reassuring, somehow, leaving the door half open when he was out of sight but close...

Alicia smiled at her contentedly as she walked towards her.

"Here's my girl. You look gorgeous. Now turn around so I can deal with this bodice and then we have to talk." She pushed Siena's loose hair over her left shoulder before she pulled at the laces resolutely, taking her breath away. "All right?" Alicia asked, spinning her around the moment she was done.

Siena nodded, watching Alicia's eyes scanning the gown.

"That's perfect, actually, and so is your hair; it will do just great left loose for this trip. You only need a pair of shoes... Let's hurry, the men will be here in a minute and there's quite a few things you need to know before you go. I don't expect you to want to wear make-up, you don't seem to use any normally?" she added as an afterthought, leading Siena towards the wardrobes.

Siena simply shook her head as they stopped by the segment of the wardrobe full of dresses and accessories similar in style to the fairytale-like gown she was wearing. "There's something I meant to ask you before we go, Alicia... How will we know when it's the time to come back? Before it's too late? Some stories are so very complex, I guess it will be easy to lose the grip on the passing of time and our own reality," she asked, while she observed the multitude of shoes.

Alicia replied without hesitation. "You'll perceive it. You'll start feeling less like, say, tourists in that world, and more like a part of it, like if you belonged there just like the characters. Your grandma told me once that she knew it was time to return when she only wanted to stay."

"You knew Grandma well..." Siena muttered. "I miss her so much sometimes. Right now it feels like I didn't know her well at all, I had no idea about this side of her," she whispered, her words underlined by a flourish of her hand encompassing the vast room.

"She loved you," Alicia said gently, pulling her in an embrace. "She simply couldn't tell you about this. It's a secret; she would get in trouble with Christopher and the whole Society if she had told you. We can talk about her whenever you want, but right now, you need to hurry. Go on, choose your shoes."

"Thanks, Alicia." Siena just managed to mutter while the old woman smoothed the voluminous skirts of her gown after she had slipped on a comfortable pair of crimson ballerinas, the only flat pair of shoes of the six Alicia offered to her-- How on earth did they expect her to walk in stilettos over the sands of the Sahara?!-- when someone knocked on the half-closed door.

"Oh, it's him, no doubt," Alicia replied, watching the glow Siena knew her face emitted at hearing the sound, making her blush. "And he looks absolutely breathtaking in his costume," she added with a wink before she turned to the door, ready to invite the men in.

"Grandma and James' father, were they..." Siena whispered even as Alicia opened her mouth.

Closing it again, she turned back to Siena. "No. They only did two quests together. Laura had already been widowed, and she retired from the Society soon after that. We all thought James' dad's feelings for her were the reason; she couldn't see herself with anyone else after your grandfather died. They met here, your grandparents, did you know that? We summoned them just like we called you and James..." Alicia muttered musingly, a melancholic smile playing on her lips.

"I didn't know," Siena admitted, pulling the red jewel from beneath her dress, arranging it on top of her golden bodice. It was the same colour as the roses on her skirt. She inhaled deeply, then called instead of Alicia, "Come in!"

Her eyes found James' the moment he entered the room behind Albert, a good deal taller than the old man, looking dashing in the uniform of the Second World War French Army pilot.

Siena took a few excited steps towards him quite unconsciously, stopping in the middle of the room where he reached her a moment later when she realised that she was behaving absolutely unprofessionally. They were colleagues, and she wanted them to stay that way. It didn't matter that James felt... well, perfect for her, the first man she had ever met who seemed to match her absolutely. She didn't think she could work with him should she allow this attraction to slip into something more. Everything would become so much more complicated...

She only stopped thinking when he held her hands in his and muttered, making her already glowing face blush, "You look wonderful."

Her breath caught when he brought one of her hands to his lips, and she knew he noticed, he knew well what effect he had on her. But she couldn't help it, she could only hope that at least Alicia and Albert wouldn't notice, or at least they would pretend they didn't.

"If you two are done, let us talk and then go down before Christopher will come to get you in person," Albert spoke.

His line was followed by the softest chuckle from Alicia, finally making Siena stop staring into James' eyes and look at them instead as she gathered her scattered thoughts. They needed to talk about the quest... Siena followed James towards the computer where the old people sat, never letting go of his hand. She felt so much safer and more normal in this bizarre reality they had been drawn into when she could hold on to him.

"Tell us everything," James said as they stopped by the desk with the computer.

There was only one free chair left, and even though he would be more than happy to sit down with Siena on his lap, he could feel that she would not appreciate that, not yet, anyway. So he gallantly offered the seat to her, and when she refused, settled on stepping closer to her, their hands joined, arms touching as they stood in front of Alicia and Albert. He loved seeing her bare shoulders in the strapless, gorgeous, impractical silliness she was wearing, its alluring décolletage, it took her beauty into some higher level if that was possible, but he really hoped the gown had a coat or a jacket to go with it, her arms were already cold here in this warm room, and the nights in the desert were...

"Let's start with the antiserum, shall we?"

"The what?" James and Siena, both expecting only a more detailed explanation of the specifics of their journey, asked in unison.

"There's the snake who bites the little boy, isn't there? In the part of the book you are planning to visit, you'll be only a few pages away from meeting him. Until you learn to use your jewels well, there's a risk that you won't transport with perfect precision. You just might appear on the page with the snake, and we don't know how he might react to your presence," Alicia said, the shrug of her shoulders putting a full stop to her explanation.

Albert continued from there. "I'm almost certain that Exupéry's snake is a Desert Horned Viper, even though he, through his pilot, claims that this snake can kill you within thirty seconds. If for nothing else, then because it would work well as a device, I think, writing into the story a snake whose bite doesn't necessarily kill, leaving it to the unreliable narrator to say it might, and thus leaving the boy's destiny to the reader's imagination... But there's a possibility that it is an Egyptian Cobra whose venom causes fatalities. Here is a polyvalent antivenom for all Sahara Desert snakes, just in case," he said.

He pushed a small metal case towards them across the table while Alicia stood up and crossed the room towards the screen where Siena had changed her clothes, returning immediately with a clutch bag matching her dress, the blue coat she had quite forgotten about, and the copy of The Little Prince she had brought.

James nodded to Albert thankfully, and after he helped Siena into the coat, he passed the metal case to her even as Alicia handed her the book and the bag, where it all fit snugly.

"Try not moving within the plot using your pendant too much, it takes time to get right," Alicia said as she reached the table again and peeked at the computer screen from above Albert, not sitting back down.

"And don't stay too long, not the first few times. It's easy to lose grip on reality, at least that's what I was told... "Albert trailed off, sighing longingly even as Alicia's eyes found Siena's; they had already talked about that.

"So, shall we tell them how will they transport?" Albert asked, making Alicia turn to him.

"Christopher wants to do that. We should take them downstairs now. Shall we go? Or is there anything else you want to know?" she continued, turning to the young couple.

Siena looked up at James, and they both shook their heads.

"We'll find him just before the snake bites him," Siena repeated what they had decided upon, her eyes intent upon James'.

"We'll tell him that we know of a better way to return home to his Rose. You'll stay with him, and I'll find the flock of migratory birds," James added, his eyes never leaving hers.

"We'll send him on his way, and once we feel he's safe, we'll return," Siena concluded.

"All right. We're good. Take us to Christopher," James spoke, forcing his eyes off Siena, breaking the spell between them as he turned to Alicia and Albert again.

"Follow us then, young friends," Albert said.

He offered his arm to Alicia, who promptly wrapped hers around it as they preceded the couple of Book Travellers, still holding hands, into the corridor and down the stairs.